My new Home Theater Projector – the JVC RS-10
It has been some time now since I have given away my Barco 801s Graphics and bought the JVC RS-10 projector. But I did not take the time to write about it on my blog up until now.
Why put away the Barco?
Well that is an easy question to answer; maintenance, performance, weight,size and noise.
Maintenance, because watching a movie on a barco just takes too much time. Every time you turn it on you need to wait a certain time before it is warmed up. Further, the CRT tubes 'drifted'. This means the convergence of the 3 tubes degraded over time and needed fine tuning every once in a while.
Performance, because although the Barco supported resolutions up to 1920x1080 (which is full HD resolution) it was not able to give a picture which was full-hd worthy. It became a little fuzzy and stuff. True, the image was better than 1280x720. But it was no where near the crispness of Full HD. Further the light output of a Barco is relatively low. You really need a light controlled room (fully dark:)) to enjoy the full potential of the Barco.
Last but not the least, weight, size and noise. The barco was not very small, light and silent. With 100cm x 60cm x 30cm it was not small. Weighing approximately 70kg, it was not very light. And with all the 12cm fans in there, it was not very silent either...
The few things CRT's do have is superb color accuracy, long tube lifetime (10.000 hours vs 1000 hours) and great contrast ratio's. But once you have seen the pro's of the RS-10 they fade away real quick. Astonishing sharpness, near-crt black levels (35.000:1), light weight and small dimensions really made the choice easy.
Ultimately, the new RS-10 delivers a really great picture and gives astonishing performance. In a fully dark room and even in rooms with normal daylight (it does not perform well in direct sunlight though 
)
Conclusion: great projector!
Getting Real – by 37signals
After a few weeks I decided to start reading "Getting Real" from 37signals. I bought the book when I read about it on a blog from Scott Berkun (Why Requirements Stink) .
I started in the morning and read it from cover to cover in a few hours.
The book does a fabulous job in creating a 'think small and easy' mind-set. And it does so without going in too much detail. Every chapter is relatively small and gets to the point quickly. After every chapter I got the feeling that I wanted to put the theory into practice and start right away. But moreover it made me wanna read the next chapter and find out more (which ultimately resulted into me reading it from cover to cover in one read).
As stated in the introduction, a lot of the principles and methods are not thought up by 37signals themselves. They borowed a few here and there and added their own sauce to create a 'methodology' which is very suitable for themselves. Although they state things as being a fact, they never force things on you. They just point out the way they do it and why it helped them to achiever their goals.
The book made me realise again how 'easy' it is to start a web application and do it right but without all the fuss of elaborate planning, specifications, etc, etc.
Another side-effect of reading the book is that I wanted to blog about it again, and it resulted in me writing 3 blog posts today. I just wanted to get it all out of my system, and get it out of there right away. True, there may be typo's and grammatical errors in some of the posts, but it is the web! When someone points them out they are realy easy to fix. Thats the way the Internet works! 
Why creating my framework ‘failed’
In one of my earlier blogs I posted about the framework I wanted to create. At the time I was really anxious in creating it and making it as cool as it was in my mind. Unfortunately, all didn't go as planned and although I have really created some nice stuff, it was not as I had expected.
So what went wrong?
First of all, I stoped working in an environment where the framework was needed for. I stoped working at my former employer and started my own business. At this company there were all sorts of problems which could be fixed by creating a framework of tools and guidelines. The framework had a purpose and the features it should have where crystal clear.
But when I stoped working there, this problem went away... So what I was eager to create became a "solution in search of a problem". And because the necessity for it went away, there was no drive to create all the aspects of it. With that, usefullness and motivation went away.
For a long period of time I did not really see this. I happily started working on it, but was not getting the results I was hoping for. Over time, the time spent on the project deminished and time was spent on other projects instead.
So the project failed?
Well, not really. I did create a solid base for all my other web development projects. The simple websites I created use the framework and it really helped me create them nicely and easily. Right now I use the framework as a "means to an end" instead of an "end". When the framework does not support something I want, I create it. Not the other way around. And although I should have learned this lesson before, from sources like Scott Berkun's: The art of Project Management and numerous other sources (books and online). I think the only way someone really learns the meaning of a statement like "A solution in search of a problem" is to experience it first hand. Preferably in a way he fail's (failure is the best learner).
What now?
Well, I learned quite a bit from the experience, and right now I am aiming on some new projects and products I would like to create. A lot of idea's sprung from reading "Getting Real" by 37signals. I will be posting about the book, and the idea's I'd like to work out, pretty soon.
How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie
In a recent post by on the Joel on Software blog by Joel Spolsky (Joel on Software: How to be a program manager) I read about the famous book "How to Win Friends & Influence People". The book covers some great ways to communicate with people and in a decent and nice way. Although the book is written more than 70 years ago, the book still applies to everyday situations. I bought the book and expected a book which covers the different aspects of communicating with people in a sort of step-by-step way which explains human behaviour. However this was not the case. The book is 95% examples and 5% explanation and guidelines.
Is this bad? No! Definately not! It gave me great insight in the human behaviour and how to cope with certain situations.
Is the book hard to read? Yes, in my opionion it is. I was not very charmed by the fact that I had to read example after example after example about how a certain principle worked for famous person X or regular person Y or business associate Z. I expected more of an in-depth explanation on why a certain principle worked and how it could be applied in a more general way.
However, all the principles and theories provided in this book are spot-on and can be applied in everyday situations.
For example I tried applying the simple principle of "Talk about your own mistakes first". I had some problems with my phone bills as I have converted my private-phone-plan contract to a business-plan contract. Some bills where lost or unretrievable from the website, I got charged twice in a certain period and got credited multiple times in other months. All was a mess and I could not make heads or tails about it.
When I called them, I did not start by stating they where wrong or that they had a non-transparent way of migrating me from a private to a business-plan contract. And that charging me double is totally outrages. Instead I started by stating that I was totally lost in the bills I received and that what was charged on my private bank account and business bank account did not add up in my mind. The response was that in their computer system all seemed well and that everything adds up neatly. However they did confirm that all was a bit of a mystery and that they would gladly help me make sense of it. I asked if she could resend all of the bills they had sent to me again so I would have everything in one batch. She responded that normally they could not do this and that they have to charge for it, but as it was a complex situation she would sent me all and charge nothing for it.
It amazed me that when I applied this simple principle, I got satisfying help and they even gave me more than I asked. I am sure that when I started complaining and stating they were to blame, I would have received a less satisfying response and maybe receive no additional help at all.
The bottom line is; this book is a really great read for everyone who wants to get the most out of everything he does and make his 'world' a more happy place to live in.